1. Field of the Disclosure
The following application is directed to an abrasive tool, and more particularly to an abrasive tool for use as a chemical mechanical planarization pad conditioner.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the fabrication of electronic devices, multiple layers of various types of material are deposited including for example conducting, semiconducting, and dielectric materials. Successive deposition or growth and removal of various layers results in a non-planar upper surface. A wafer surface that is not sufficiently planar will result in structures that are poorly defined, with the circuits being nonfunctional or exhibiting less than optimum performance. Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is a common technique used to planarize or polish workpieces such as semiconductor wafers.
During a typical CMP process, a workpiece is placed in contact with a polishing pad and a polishing slurry is provided on the pad to aid in the planarization process. The polishing slurry can include abrasive particles which may interact with the workpiece in an abrasive manner to remove materials, and may also act in a chemical manner to improve the removal of certain portions of the workpiece. The polishing pad is typically much larger than the workpiece, and is generally a polymer material that can include certain features, such as micro-texture suitable for holding the slurry on the surface of the pad.
During such polishing operations, a pad conditioner is typically employed to move over the surface of the polishing pad to clean the polishing pad and properly condition the surface to hold slurry. Polishing pad conditioning is important to maintaining a desirable polishing surface for consistent polishing performance, since the surface of the polishing pad wears down over time and resulting in smoothing of micro-texture of the pad. Still, the conditioning operation faces certain obstacles, including the presence of polishing debris which can clog the components, chemical corrosion, conditioner geometry irregularity, conditioner over-use, and grain pull-out, which can interfere with conditioning operations and damage the sensitive electronic components being polished.
Accordingly, the industry continues to demand improved CMP pad conditioners and methods of forming thereof.